LAST week, I was pontificating merrily on Tony Blair’s miraculous escape from the jaws of the Hutton Inquiry. But all it took was the Prime Minister’s midweek wobble on the 45-minute question and we were off again. If nothing else, that says that the absence of Alastair Campbell at the heart of Tony’s web is now resulting in serious gaffes.
But the rot is deeper than just one off-the-cuff remark from the PM. It is beginning to appear that Iraq 2003 is turning into one of those landmark moments in British politics, on a par with Munich 1938 and Suez 1956 - that is, an event that splits t
he nation and defines political careers for a generation thereafter on the basis of what side you were on. Can we discern any lessons for Mr Blair in those earlier crises?
Incidentally, I notice that Margaret Beckett tried to justify Tony’s alleged ignorance over the difference between strategic and battlefield weapons by claiming that even Winston Churchill would not have known his WMD from his Lee Enfield rifle. Actually, Winston was a military anorak who doubled as minister of defence during the Second World War and, for a time, after 1951. Oh, for politicians with some knowledge of history.
Back in September 1936, the Munich settlement with Hitler seemed a diplomatic victory for the appeasement policy of the Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain. His Foreign Secretary, Anthony Eden, had just quit in disgust at Chamberlain’s unwillingness to get tough with Mussolini and Hitler. Yet most of the electorate were anxious to avoid another European war.
Suddenly, Hitler seemed to back down - his tactic was always to push to the limits, then retreat. Adolf invited Chamberlain to fly to Munich for talks. The British PM returned in triumph, bearing Hitler’s promise to be a good boy if only he got what he wanted this time (the prime bits of Czechoslovakia). You know the rest.
Chamberlain was not the bumbling fool subsequent history has painted him. But his bounding self-confidence and impatience led him to abandon sensible cabinet government for an I-can-do-anything-better-than-you approach, including running world affairs. Eden had quit as Foreign Secretary partly because Chamberlain was going behind his back and trying to run a parallel foreign policy. When Prime Ministers start down the megalomaniac route, you are always in for trouble. At Munich, Hitler already knew that there had been huge dissension inside the British government over foreign policy, and that Chamberlain had staked his reputation on proving Eden was wrong. So, he baited a trap and watched Neville walk straight in.
Blair is no Neville Chamberlain, but he has taken centralisation of government to ludicrous lengths, to the extent that Cabinet ministers such as Geoff Hoon as mere ciphers. Apart from the brooding Gordon Brown, who is there in the Cabinet (which hardly meets) to say nay to Tony? And please remember how inexperienced Tony Blair is. Yes, he has been Prime Minister for seven years now, but before that he had had zilch experience of running anything. He had never done an apprenticeship as Chancellor or Foreign Secretary. These are all the ingredients - arrogance, poor advice and lack of experience - that spell potential disaster.
Suez is perhaps a closer parallel to Iraq. Both have Middle Eastern dictators, oil, a failed appeal to the UN, a government spat with the BBC, and a quick war that ends up a diplomatic dog’s breakfast. In the 1956 version, Anthony Eden turns up again, this time as PM. History has made Eden into an effete Colonel Blimp. Actually, he could converse fluently in idiomatic Arabic and had 20 years’ experience at diplomacy.
In 1956, the Egyptian dictator, Colonel Nasser, seized control of the Suez Canal, through which two-thirds of Britain’s oil was delivered. Nasser was not quite Saddam Hussein, but he did use poison gas in the Yemen. Eden originally favoured diplomacy with Nasser, and Britain had agreed to pull its troops out of the canal zone. Then Nasser, desperate to bolster his domestic position, grabbed direct control of the canal in defiance of these treaty obligations. Public opinion in the UK was outraged and the media called for tough action. Eden favoured quick military intervention, but the generals demanded several months’ preparation. To buy time, Eden tried to get the UN to persuade Nasser to accept a compromise, whereby the canal would be put under international control. However, this was vetoed at the Security Council by the Soviet Union.
Eden was now trapped by circumstances into going to war without UN backing. The nation split down the middle. The Archbishop of Canterbury preached: "The point to which the Christian conscience must acutely address itself is whether or not we are standing to the spirit of the United Nations Charter." But Eden viewed Nasser precisely as another Hitler who refused to honour international agreements. Unless Nasser was disciplined, the spirit of the UN Charter was being flouted - a not unreasonable point. However, by this time, an exasperated Eden had caught the Neville Chamberlain disease and was trying to run the war all by himself. This was a fatal mistake, as it alienated Cabinet colleagues, such as the ambitious Harold Macmillan, who immediately began plotting the Prime Minister’s downfall. Eden also became increasingly irritated with the BBC for failing to be a mouthpiece for his plans. He was wont to refer to "those Communists at the BBC".
British paratroops dropped over Egypt on 5 November, 1956. An angry United States threatened to bankrupt the British economy if we did not halt. Humiliated, Eden bowed to the inevitable. He was soon replaced by Macmillan, just as a scandal began to erupt over Eden’s secret dealings with the Israelis. Ever since, it has been British policy to march in step with the US. Somehow, I think that national humiliation in 1956 marked the start of a definite anti-American bias in large parts of UK society - for most of working-class Britain supported the Suez invasion. It is a brooding sentiment that Tony Blair often fails to note, yet which I fear is the true basis for much of the British opposition to the Iraq war. WMD, or the lack of them, are only a pretext.
Eden’s real mistake was to over-estimate three things: Britain’s room for independent action, his own abilities and the threat from Nasser. He may not have made those errors had he been more willing to listen to colleagues. Tony, please note. Neither Chamberlain nor Eden were men to admit their mistakes. Ditto Tony. But once you are in a political hole, no amount of "independent" inquiries will get you out. There were good strategic reasons for getting rid of Saddam, but implying he was about to nuke Cyprus was not one of them. Tony needs to apologise for exaggerating the WMD threat, or he will never be able to bury the issue.
Eden is the supreme example of a talented and popular Prime Minister - Suez happened the year after he won a general election with 49.7 per cent of the vote - being swept from office by events. It now remains to be seen if Gordon Brown is quite as ruthless as was Harold Macmillan.
